Massage / soft tissue work post workout ?

Tell me is it good or bad for muscle and tendon growth and increased recovery  ? 

I am asking this because ONE of the factors that massage does is removes waste products BUT these products are needed ( lactic acid ) for growth hormone trigger so the muscle CAN grow bigger and stronger.

^ I have been told this.

I need quicker growth and adaptions in muscles and tendons.  

Will massage support that or is it counter productive ?

This is an advanced question, I know that, I am going to do my own research on this but I thought I need to hear some experienced people opinion.

I know that the massage topic has been brought up, but I think my question is rather different.

stretching feels like the right kind of medicine for me and when "issues" arise like nagging tightness or a dull, looming kind of feeling in my joints is the sign i go with to get checked out for manual therapy.

as for immediately post workout and it having an adverse effect, i have no clue. maybe an ice bath could also be an optionpost workout. this is something im interested in exploring, along with when to rely on manual therapy.

Keilani Gutierrez said:

stretching feels like the right kind of medicine for me and when "issues" arise like nagging tightness or a dull, looming kind of feeling in my joints is the sign i go with to get checked out for manual therapy.

as for immediately post workout and it having an adverse effect, i have no clue. maybe an ice bath could also be an optionpost workout. this is something im interested in exploring, along with when to rely on manual therapy.

Well I am sorry that I misspelled it - I did not meant directly post workout massage, but like in the evening before bed or something like that

I'm a massage therapist. Massage does very little to "remove waste products". This is a myth that won't go away

While an area is being massaged, it experiences a small increase in blood flow, but that's about it.

The only real caveat after a fairly hard massage is to be aware that you might be less stable if you're lifting heavy loads. But this varies from person to person.

To get "quicker growth", simply follow F1, H1 etc and progress through mastery.

Slow, heavy isometrics will stimulate adaptation in tendons, ligaments and cartilage around the joints. Because F1 is a long-term program, muscles will take care of themselves.

Any other questions, please ask.

NickM said:

I'm a massage therapist. Massage does very little to "remove waste products". This is a myth that won't go away

While an area is being massaged, it experiences a small increase in blood flow, but that's about it.

The only real caveat after a fairly hard massage is to be aware that you might be less stable if you're lifting heavy loads. But this varies from person to person.

To get "quicker growth", simply follow F1, H1 etc and progress through mastery.

Slow, heavy isometrics will stimulate adaptation in tendons, ligaments and cartilage around the joints. Because F1 is a long-term program, muscles will take care of themselves.

Any other questions, please ask.

What do you think of trigger point therapy? Or SMR? Legit or broscience?

There is considerable debate and disagreement on what a "trigger point" actually is and what the best way is to treat them.

Everyone agrees that there are tender points in muscles, and that these points, when pressed and held, usually feel better after a minute or two (though some of them can refer pain to other parts of the body as they lessen in intensity).

The traditional  view of trigger points is that they are a little lump in a taut band of muscle, and that you can feel them. I've never felt one, though I have felt areas of muscle that are more contracted than the areas around them. A "traditional" trigger point is supposed to be some over-contracted muscle fibres that fatigue, and the metabolic effects of the continued contraction further irritate the area around the contraction, so the whole thing gradually gets worse. Other people think tender points are where nerves pass through different layers of tissue and for some reason can't move as easily as they normally would, and then get irritated (and the tender point is therefore an angry nerve, rather than an angry muscle fibre).

"Trigger point therapy" can mean one or more of

1. Pressing hard on one of these tender points until it hurts a lot, then maintaining that pressure until all you feel is pressure from your finger
2. Pressing with moderate pressure on one of these points whiles slowly putting whichever muscle it is in, into a light stretch. Repeat until the point is no longer tender.
3. Dry needling - using an acupuncture needle and sticking one or more of them into the tender point or along the "taut band of muscle".
4. Foam rolling the area
5. Applying heat to the area.

All of these approaches work, though my preferred approach is (2). Any kind of pressure on the area has a multitude of effects, including movement of one layer of tissue over another - this seems to give the best results.

So to answer the question, trigger point therapy is a "thing", and regardless of how it's done, it can give relief, but it probably doesn't work the way people think it does. And it may not have much to do with muscles!

Sorry, I'm not familiar with "SMR".

NickM said:

I'm a massage therapist. Massage does very little to "remove waste products". This is a myth that won't go away

 

While an area is being massaged, it experiences a small increase in blood flow, but that's about it.

 

The only real caveat after a fairly hard massage is to be aware that you might be less stable if you're lifting heavy loads. But this varies from person to person.

 

To get "quicker growth", simply follow F1, H1 etc and progress through mastery.

 

Slow, heavy isometrics will stimulate adaptation in tendons, ligaments and cartilage around the joints. Because F1 is a long-term program, muscles will take care of themselves.

 

Any other questions, please ask.

Hi !

First, I wanted to thank you for answering my post about massage therapy.

Second, I have some more questions about this topic.

1. What is the real purpose of massage ? ( Real benefits)

2. Are you familiar with deep tissue massage ? 

3. Does Kinesio Tape work ?

4. Does foam rolling work ?

5. Does massage damage the muscle / ligament fibers or can it be done everyday ?

6. Does it provide any increased stimulus in growth and recovery ?

7. Why do people feel better after massage ? Is the effect temporary or the effect lasts longer if done frequently?

I want to know about this subject because I am thinking of maybe becoming a partial massage therapist so I must know is it really beneficial for strength, recovery, performance, longevity, overall well-being and health.

I am sorry for this load of questions, I will wait for your response.

Thank you !

This is quite long, sorry.

Answers to questions

 1. What is the real purpose of massage ? ( Real benefits)
 2. Are you familiar with deep tissue massage ?
 3. Does Kinesio Tape work ?
 4. Does foam rolling work ?
 5. Does massage damage the muscle / ligament fibers or can it be done everyday ?
 6. Does it provide any increased stimulus in growth and recovery ?
 7. Why do people feel better after massage ? Is the effect temporary or the effect lasts longer if done frequently?
 
Firstly, my background is originally science and (electronic) engineering, and  I like to know how things work. I've also been out of massage school for about 2-1/2 years, so while I have some experience, my answers are very biased towards where and how I have studied, towards my sciencey background, and my strong ethical requirement to do no harm to my clients.
 
My experiences are purely mine, and I urge you to not judge or evaluate someone purely on experience. Test anything I write here against other research you have done. I'll give you some suggestions for further reading at the end.
 
I use the words "can", "might", "may", "perhaps" a lot.  There is not a great deal known about massage/physiotherapy/physical therapy and there is not a lot of high-quality research into the "best" way to apply massage/physio/etc techniques. So, I can't tell you the absolute truth because we simply don't know enough about how movement, massage, physical therapy actually affect the body yet.
 
What I've written below is my interpretation of the current thinking in the massage field. Most of the answers are in the answer to question 1.
 
1. What is the real purpose of massage ? ( Real benefits)

Massage provides that part of the brain that has an internal representation of the body with a large amount of stimulus. This stimulus is interpreted by other parts of the brain, and the effects of that stimulus can result in changes in the client's body when it moves.
 
I'll explain:

There are many different types of "receptor" in the skin. Some detect touch, either sending a signal to the brain when the touch starts, or continually sending signals. Other receptors detect vibration, pressure, temperature. There are also similar receptors in the muscles, in tendons, and in joints.
 
When massaging someone, you can ONLY touch the skin, so most of the input to the brain comes from the skin. So messages go from the skin to the brain via the spinal cord. Simplifying things a lot, there's a part of the brain called the somatosensory cortex. It detects things that happen in the body. It's next to the motor cortex, which sends messages down different nerves to make muscles contract (or *doesn't* send messages....this gets muscles to relax....or sends messages to inhibit muscles from contracting). Both the somatosensory and motor cortex are connected to other parts of the brain that interpret, evaluate and integrate the sensory information coming from the body with a lot of other information: memories, how you feel at present, your fatigue levels, your beliefs, parts of the brain that control reflex, and most importantly, the part of the brain that decides if some kind of external stimulus is threatening or not.
 
So, if "firm, but slow, massage stroke" + other skin input + comfortable massage table + expectation that massage will help is assessed by the brain as not threatening, then the motor cortex is told to stop sending messages to a muscle or muscles, and they decrease in tone/tension/"tightness" (though "tight" is not a precise term). After this, the brain re-evaluates its opinions on the muscles involved, reorganises how it sends messages to them, and when the person gets up off the table, they feel different, usually better.
 
But if someone just pokes into your glutes hard with a bent elbow, that is probably going to be interpreted by the brain as threatening, and you'll tense up. That's the "this stimulus is threatening" response.

Some people simply prefer a much firmer massage than others, and most people adapt to a firmer massage after a couple of sessions. I always start lightly so I dont' have to fight the tension caused by poking people too hard.

Here's an example of how this all works.

A guy comes into the clinic, he's a runner, he's been getting pain on the inside of the right knee. What do we look for? We ask if he's increased his running, running on different terrain, or anything that indicates increased load. Increased load can mean exceeding the body's ability to recover, or it might mean "threat". Usually, pain means "threat". The sensations coming from the knee might be interpreted by the brain as "pain" because other parts of the brain know (probably via some chemical means, this is where my own knowledge is a bity hazy) that the knee, or hip, or somewhere else, isn't recovering as well as it should.

The runner's symptoms might include holding his right hip a little further forward than his left, as the body attempts to change itself to deal with the increased load. In general, the body changes itself in several ways:

• it adapts to the increased load, given enough time to recover, by getting stronger and capable of more endurance, and/or
• it recruits other muscles to assist in dealing with the increased load, sometimes these other muscles haven't had time to, adapt so they're the ones that end up sore, and/or
• it changes muscle activation patterns to try to share load any way it can, and/or
• something tears, rips or breaks.

What do I do as a therapist? For this client I compress several muscles around the hip to try to decrease their tone, and thus let the hip sit back down. It's important to remember that the hip being held "forward" is not the problem. The pain is also not the problem. The increased load is the problem.

My job is to figure out what the problem is, treat the symptoms, then suggest some kind of exercise, movement, stretch or whatever to either fix the problem or allow the client to keep running (or GST or...). During the treatment the runner says "that hurts, but it's a good pain". I said usually "pain = threat" but here, the runner is getting huge amounts of stimulus from my treatment, but he's adapting to it and the sensation is still intense, but is regarded as not threatening.
 
So to actually answer the question, the purpose of massage, as I see it, is to enable the person on the table to continue to be able to do their chosen activity.

By now you probably realise that massage is not just a mechanical process: rub this, poke that, tape something else. Those are all mechanical activities, and sometimes people will have a problem that looks like it's mechanical (lack of internal rotation at the hip is a good one) but often the problem responds to the small alterations in muscle tone that you achieve with massage.
 
 2. Are you familiar with deep tissue massage ?

There are various massage techniques that are sometimes called "Swedish" for the long, flowing strokes, plucking and "chopping" motions you usually associate with massage. These can be light or firm, depending on the client's need. There are others that are "remedial", designed to treat a specific problem.
 
"Deep tissue" is often confused with "pressing harder". Sometimes you need to apply a massage stroke quite lightly, but slowly. Working more slowly usually has "deeper" effects, and is not as painful for the client.
 
There are a lot of techniques that people give names to, because a) people like to have a name for something and b) the person inventing the technique can call themselves a guru and make a downloadable product out of it, or run seminars or training sessions.
 
But there are only a limited number of ways to massage someone. It's more about what you're trying to do rather than how you do it.

"Deep tissue" massage is usually requested by people who need to "release" something. Mechanically, it's not possibly to release anything - muscle and fascial tissue is simply too strong for me to affect as a therapist. However, I AM able to affect muscle tone, and this is where the release comes from. The SomaSimple forum (in the Reading section at the end) is full of references about mechanical effects on fascia. It just can't happen in one session.
 
 3. Does Kinesio Tape work ?

Anything applied to the skin will do something to the client's body, as mentioned in (1). A sensation of "pulling" may cause the client to move slightly differently, and in some cases, this altered movement is what reduces the pain or increases the amount a muscle may fire, and so on.
 
The colours are just for how it looks. I like colourful things, so that's fine by me.
 
4. Does foam rolling work ?

Same answer as for kinesio tape.
 
Best example: A lot of people roll their ITB because it's "tight". With the iliotibial band, the effect is more that the roller drops some tone ("tone" means "amount of muscle contraction when a muscle is performing an activity") out of the vastus lateralis (the quad on the outside of the leg), so the muscle doesn't press on the underside of the ITB as much. You can't stretch an ITB, it's impossible, and you don't want to - it's one of the things that stops your knees from collapsing in together. In this case, the rolling is probably affecting the VL rather than the ITB itself.
 
5. Does massage damage the muscle / ligament fibers or can it be done everyday ?

It can if you press hard enough and do it for long enough. There's a technique called "cross fibre friction", developed by a guy called Cyriax, that involves rubbing very hard across (at right angles to) the fibres of a tendon or ligament. The intent is to create a mild inflammation that the body's immune system then fixes up. Cross fibre work is supposed to be good for old, chronic tendon problems that won't go away.

There is some evidence that it works, though from what I've read the evidence is not that convincing. And the technique hurts!

Cross fibre work is usually done a few times a week for a few weeks, then you stop and let the tendon heal.

Normal massage, even if firm, can be done every day, though if you feel a little unsteady if you squat/single leg squat after a massage, it would be a good idea to do a longer warmup if you're training that day.
 
6. Does it provide any increased stimulus in growth and recovery ?

Only indirectly for recovery, if at all. I've not seen any evidence that massage helps growth. The only way it MIGHT, is if it makes you feel good enough to train more regularly.
 
Massage MIGHT reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and if it reduces underlying muscle tension then it MAY mean you can move around more and train a little harder.
 
There's some evidence that DOMS is either a fascial effect, or even a neural effect, or perhaps both. Some of the massage techniques that stretch skin and fascia can apparently help, most likely by giving the nerves in the skin, fascia and/or muscles stimulus that somehow inhibits whatever
 
7. Why do people feel better after massage ? Is the effect temporary or the effect lasts longer if done frequently?

Answer (1) answers this question. Massage really works on the nervous system. all the hand-on-skin, pressing on muscles in different ways, stretching, heat and so on all provide different types of stimuli, and as mentioned, if these are regarded by the brain as non-threatening, they will feel good and can help someone move a bit differently.
 
 It really depends on the person getting massaged as to how long the effects last, and if they go back into their chosen activity.
 If you're training hard, a massage every week is great. If you can afford it!
 
 
 Further reading
 This forum
 https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/21143-stretching-vs-myofascial-release/#entry191073
 
 Other

https://www.painscience.com/   <-This is a good place to start, the guy used to be a massage therapist and explains everything I've written about above more thoroughly

 www.somasimple.com
 www.dermoneuromodulation.com
 Facebook group "Skeptical massage therapists"
 Facebook group "Dermoneuromodulation"
 

 Any other questions, please feel free to ask.
 

Well, I learnt a couple things today thanks for taking the time to write thst up, Nick!

 That was an excellent write-up.

 Awhile back, after a few hours of getting my massage (which worked mostly on my shoulders) I went to the gym. I wasn't worth a darn warming up with the bar (snatch/clean/jerk) but I ended up having a pretty good squatting day. 

So I'm pretty much sticking to post workout or I take the day off. 

I do find light mobility work to also be relaxing. This is generally done with a super light load and soft tempo with no grinding. 

When I said massage can make you unstable, it means that because of all the extra input to the brain, the brain takes a while to sort out what to do with it, and this sorting process can take a day or so.

Blairbob, I heard some fascinating research a few years back about triathletes who were penalised for drafting (riding too close to the rider in front). The penalty was 3 minutes sitting down after the ride/before the run. Incredibly, the penalised athletes did better on the run compared with the non-penalised athletes, and the effect was apparently due to the riding motor/muscle activation pattern not interfering with the run motor pattern due to the short rest!

NickM said:

When I said massage can make you unstable, it means that because of all the extra input to the brain, the brain takes a while to sort out what to do with it, and this sorting process can take a day or so.

 

Blairbob, I heard some fascinating research a few years back about triathletes who were penalised for drafting (riding too close to the rider in front). The penalty was 3 minutes sitting down after the ride/before the run. Incredibly, the penalised athletes did better on the run compared with the non-penalised athletes, and the effect was apparently due to the riding motor/muscle activation pattern not interfering with the run motor pattern due to the short rest!

You say that it works on nervous system. What about Lymph circulation speed up ?

I have been told that gentle massage on skin increases Lymph circulation which is good

Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD) is supposed to clear lymph a little faster, yes. There are a couple of different ways to do it, but essentially it is a gentle, light stroke from the extremeties (end of a limb) towards a collection of lymph nodes. It helps to reduce swelling or oedema after an injury, or if lymph nodes have been removed (often the armpit lymph nodes, after breast cancer).

As always, the research is conflicting! However one way to measure it is to measure the circumference around a limb at different points (every 2-3cm in a leg, for example), then perform MLD, then re-measure. Circulating lymph back into the bloodstream (which is where it ends up) may explain the difference in circumference.

However, I sometimes wonder if, because MLD is gentle and usually pretty relaxing, if a drop in muscle tone is also responsible for the difference in circumference. I must investigate this!